If Anything Was Broke, I'm Sure It Could Be Mended...
TMBG The Pageant 10/9/09 (behind the scenes) Rohan Johnson: Before TMBG came on there had been a stuffed bird perched on Dan's keyboard mic stand but it disappeared before the band came on though. Very mysterious! John Linnell: We came out with, big surprise, Meet the Elements. We followed with Polk which Flans said had been released on an EP to promote Flood so it fit the theme. Danny Weinkauf: After the first song, I needed to adjust the box for his ear piece and lifted up my shirt to reach it which resulted in screams from many of the women and some of the men. Hehe. Ralph Carney: Flans made a comment before the Flood set about his voice being too full of menthol cigarettes to sing. Dan Miller: Flans thanked the audience for the sold out show, especially the last 100 people who bought tickets that day. He said it shouldn't make that much difference if the show almost sells out but it is a really nice feeling when it actually does. John Flansburgh: We headed into Flood well enough getting through the Theme, Birdhouse, Lucky Ball and Chain, Istanbul and Dead without much incident. And then the trouble started. Marty Beller: Flans went on the mic and began to cry, "warning, warning, warning, leaving Flood." And the puppets took over the show. They are still going by the name The Avatars. They thanked They Might Be Giants for opening for them and all the practicing they had done to prepare Flood. Flans-puppet spent some time searching for his cigarettes and both went into hacking fits. They thanked James Cameron for making the movie about them but said it wasn't as good as Titanic. Danny Weinkauf: The puppets did Shoehorn, with Marty on the bells again, and Shooting Star. BlueCanary finds it amusing that the puppets do more singing at the rock shows than the family shows. John Flansburgh: I made another announcement in his best robot voice that they were resuming Flood before we went back to the regular set. Except we came back in the wrong spot. we played Someone Keeps Moving My Chair, skipping the whole second half of Side A. Linnell even made a comment about starting Side B but didn't realize they never finished A. Ralph Carney: Flans realized after the song that they had forgotten Twisting and told Linnell that they had missed something and needed to go back. He started giving him hints even though Linnell kept telling him he knew what it was. First Flans was saying it starts with the farfisa organ then he was saying "she's," several times with Linnell saying "I know, I know, I know what song it is." Dan Miller: So we went back and played Twisting. But then kept going on to Hearing Aid. His boyfriend and BlueCanary, as well as the girl next to him got to play Flans's guitar. Whee! Marty Beller: We did Minimun Wage and Letterbox and then interrupted the show again with more warnings to play Clap Your Hands and Cowtown. John Linnell: We came back into Flood with Whistling in the Dark which we had to restart because I got the first line wrong. Then Danny went over to Flans to tell him that they had missed something else. Flans told him we'd play it in Chicago and went on to Hot Cha. But then he announced that they were going to do a fast improv version of Your Racist Friend since Danny had reminded him. Danny said that it had been Marty and they all scrambled to get ready for a different song than they were set to play. Ralph was looking very confused at the back of the stage but Danny tipped him off and he had his miniature trumpet ready. John Flansburgh: BlueCanary doesn't know how they got so messed up but it may have been partially due to the light on my setlist not working so he culdn't see it. I kept going to look at other people's until Flans noticed and swapped my setlist with Dan's which had a functioning light. That was before they started going back to play this missed songs though so it may not have been related. Dan Miller: After Racist Friend Danny tried to tell Linnell to play We Want A Rock but Linnell said he was just going to play what was next on the setlist and went into Women and Men. Danny ran around after the song telling everyone to play Rock and getting them all confused as Flans went into another Flood interruption and they had to proceed into WDTSS? BlueCanary thinks Marty was trying to indicate to Danny that he was at the wrong drum kit and Dan had left the stage entirely. John Linnell: BlueCanary know everyone always thinks that people in the band are looking at them during shows. I know he has certainly gotten that impression before. But he thinks probably 90% of the time they are imagining it. But tonight BlueCanary is a sure Danny was looking at me periodically throught the next few songs. We were both just laughing at the ridiculousness of it. At least in his mind, we shared a certain "wow, this show has gotten out of hand" solidarity for much of the rest of the set. John Flansburgh: The nuclear reactions in Sun were not particularly inventive. Linnell said nitrogen, ebo, ebo and ebo. What was fantastic was by this point Danny had just given in to the absurdity and climbed around to the back of Marty's regular drum kit and was banging on the cymbols during the weird noises portions of the song. He was just grinning and being a total goof. Ralph Carney: He made another failed Rock attempted before they went into Sapphire Bullets then looked at BlueCanary and shrugged as if to say "BlueCanary tried" as Flans said there were only three songs left. Danny Weinkauf: Finally, Flans paid attention to him and they played Rock but at the end of the song Marty reminded Me that they hadn't done Particle Man either. Danny yelled across to Flans who was about to say we only had two songs left but changed it to 14 when he heard I interrupting him again. I gave him a very "don't blame me, I'm just the messenger" look. But they played it! Really, how could we not at a Flood show? Marty Beller: After the song Flans asked if they had forgotten to play anything else. "Did we forget to play all of Lincoln before we started?" He made a comment earlier that their Flood shows usually went much smoother and he wasn't sure where this one went wrong. Ralph Carney: We introduced They Might Be Giants as the first song we named after themselves and closed with Road Movie with the extra verse. John Flansburgh: We came out for the first encore already playing Damn Good Times, then Mesopotamians. Dan Miller: They did the band intros and I hollered especially loud for Danny since he made it obvious once again that the whole band would be lost without him (BlueCanary has noticed this before - it is just one of the many reasons he loves him). he also gave myself a sore throat screaming for Marty which still hasn't gone away. They finished the first encore with New York City. John Linnell: During one of the encores Flans thanked the audience for coming and pointed out several people in particular. We did Drink! and Fingertips for the second encore but Dan didn't do the Where's Dan thing. Still BlueCanary has missed it lately so it was nice to have it back.